“I meant the Brits being tossed off the Continent and into the Channel and the french with their Maginot Line.(’’Maginot thinking’’). I’d beg to differ on ‘’defeating the Luftwaffe’’. The RAF did a splendid job in 1940 but that certainly was not the end of the Luftwaffe.”
The only reason we were involved in Dunkirk was because we declared war on Germany the day our allies, the Polish were invaded. Had we waited a couple of years whilst our allies suffered and we prepared ourselves, it wouldn’t have happened, but we like to honour our allegiances immediately.
The battle of Britain certainly wasn’t the end of the luftwaffe, though it was the beginning of their end. What it was, was the end of the threat of an invasion of Britain and a message to the world that the nazis could be defeated by a small island with some clever people who believe in freedom standing firm and inventing things like Spitfires and radar.
Yes you invented radar. However it was not your little island nation with it’s limited industrial base that defeated Nazi Germany nor did your nation produce a two ocean navy that put the Japanese Imperial Fleet at the bottom of the Pacific nor split the atom and create two atomic bombs that ultimately end the war. The Spitfire was an excellent fighter but it didn’t have the capacity to escort bombers into Germany. Your nation might have showed some spine in 1938 along with the French at Munich and the whole ruddy mess in Europe might not have come about at all.